Best Buy Inc.’s Geek Squad, the electronics retailer giant’s 20,000 technician service and support unit, recently said that it will provide outsourced service and support to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) referred by IT solution providers, telephony agents, and wiring and cable resellers under a new partner program.

The retailer, which kicked off the Geek Squad partner program at the recent Channel Partners Conference in Las Vegas, NV, said that its technicians will provide remote and on-site support for diagnostics and repair, client and server administration, network integration, network, firewall, VPN, and server support, and data backup and transfers.

“With our service offerings, the expertise of our Geek Squad Agents nationwide, and our solid brand reputation, we believe Geek Squad is uniquely equipped to partner with the reseller community to meet the needs of small business customers today,” said George Sherman, Best Buy services senior vice president.

Geek Squad Office Support consists of a Standard Plan with unlimited 24/7/365 phone and online support priced at $24.99 per month per seat, and an Advanced plan with unlimited 24/7/365 phone and online support plus on-site agent support for $49.99 per month.

Officials said that IP telephony resellers, wiring and cabling resellers and agents—many of which are looking for additional revenue and profit opportunities--are the likely participants in the program.

Channel partners will sell the service plans and the retailer will fulfill the contract. Partners will receive a fee for each contract along with residuals.

The program further underscores Best Buy’s intention to mine the SMB market, marked initially by its $167 million purchase last November of mindShift Technologies Inc. to add managed services to its SMB lineup.

The retailer recently posted Q4 losses of $1.7 billion and outlined a plan to lower costs by $800 by fiscal 2015, including closing 50 stores in the U.S., firing 400 employees and piloting smaller stores in certain markets.

Services account for some 5 percent of Best Buy’s U.S. sales, according to company documents.

Now Best Buy may find itself mired in scandal as Brian Dunn, who resigned his chief executive post this week, is facing allegations that he used company resources to engage in an inappropriate relationship with a female employee, according to multiple reports.

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